HP MediaSmart Servers Gain Mac Compatibility

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I have to wonder if this MediaSmart Server constitutes a "computer." If so, is it a violation of OSX's EULA to use it for OSX backups.

That has to be the most retarded EULA yet. You can't backup your computer onto another computer's hard drive??? It's a hard drive. It won't run on a Windows machine (without additional hacking, at least which is not a backup and beyond the scope here). But it might be convenient if you have a network setup and spare drive space or whatever. Geeze, I'm glad I don't read those Eulas and twice as glad I don't obey them. Screw Apple. Their insane levels of greed are an example of why the world's economy is tanking. Frankly, I'll backup my Macs any way I feel like it. It's none of their business. Frankly, all these things should/could be shot down under the U.S. Constitution's right to privacy. IMO, Apple (or any other company) should have no right to dictate HOW you use your computer if you are using legal copy of their software. Imagine if a car company could dictate WHERE you can drive your car. It's absurd.

 

[archer75]

@arher75, you can do the first things you describe with remote connect, via a web browser also with no special software under xp/vista/ubuntu, you just asign a static ip on your machine it's easy, no added functionality for me there. In terms of drive pools I can see how usefull this can be. Thanks for the heads up!
"You can use several offsite backup services, they plug directly into the home server console and will backup whatever changes to an offsite location"
That I d be interested in, because currently I have a raid with 3tb all mirrored one to one, what do I back it up externally a 3tb drive lol? Of course these home servers should have data safety as their no. 1 feature they are nas drives. That said I have yet to find an affordable solution for offsite backup, when I go into the tb region the costs for a single user, to me at least, are way way too high.

You don't have to backup everything. And it doesn't all have to be on one drive. Things like pictures and home movies are irreplaceable so I always have extra backups of those.

As far as off site backup, mozy is the only affordable unlimited service I am aware. You need to install it in a non server OS or they make you get the enterprise version which is way too much.
For for the home user it works in windows and mac and costs $5/month. And it's truly unlimited. I checked the small print.
Non of the other unlimited services i've checked are really unlimited.

WHS does provide alot of features in one box and it's easy to use. It's target audience is the average home user with a growing library of data. These are the people who just wouldn't get raid.
Personally all I want is redundancy, single drive pool and the ability to use drives of any size without using space. There are two options for that: WHS and unraid. Though unraid does lack alot of the features of WHS it makes up for some of it in it's parity use and the ability to spin down un-needed drives. Though the extra safety of having previous versions and backing up all my computers makes WHS the winner for me.

I like what I hear about the upcoming Freenas .7 with ZFS and RaidZ. If I could use drives of any size I would think about switching.

 

[VoR]

What's wrong with freenas/bsd using bog standard ufs right now? Wouldn't take long to mimic mirrored folders with rsync.
Doesn't take long to try out something like freenas and zfs on a system if you're looking for alternatives

I don't care much for unraids license, it's performance (write especially) and it's reliance and limitations on/by it's parity drive - however if you're mainly serving media, being able to spin down unused drives on access could be seen as an advantage over a raid.

 

[haze]

Any Mac (I use a Mac mini w/1TB additional HD).

With a little searching on the internet and a few downloads, probably any Linux box too.

I must have missed where a Mini has a drive pool so that you can mix and match drive sizes that show as one large volume. UnRAID or FreeNAS would be likely alternatives, but a Mini really isn't. Pus, if you don't have old parts lying around building an UnRAID or FreeNAS box that is in a small form factor, low power, somewaht quiet, and a decent looking case would get $$$ very fast.

I wish Apple would have something, but currently they don't. I am using a PowerMac G4 right now, but it isn't the same as WHS or UnRAID. Plus, it is loud and draws a lot of power.

In the lab that I maintain, we have two Xserves, one with RAID5. Now that would be a solution, but we are talking enterprise vs consumer and a lot of $$$$$.

 

[harrye123]

There's never enough you can do with regards to offsite storage and multiple backup mechanisms, lots of different situations. I was just trying to make quite an obvious point, all I meant was that I wouldn't rely on a single device for important data - your system for example, sounds quite resilient to a drive dying but a single miss click/command and you've lost data?

Sure, you have an obvious and important point about my policies for data integritiy, at the moment since my raided pc is vista I rely on shadow copies not that much, the recycle bin, and the odd undelete program because if I understand correctly you are refering to data integrity. But of course all these are rudimentary.

Now you mentioned zfs, which, well, that brings the game to a whole new level, is it out already in some form of betta one can try, solaris of course?

 

[VideoFreek]

harrye123, you were talking about serving files via http - It just means you can access them from a web browser, locally or otherwise.
It's just an operating system. Everything you've mentioned in your posts can be done on this and most premade systems, just as it can on a fully featured commercial desktop os or a stripped oss distro.

That's correct, VoR. It seems these threads always go in the same direction, with geeks jumping in and complaining they can do everything (and more) for less money with their linux, ubuntu, etc. box and a hodgepodge of freeware. Of course they can, but they miss the point of this device, which is marketed not to techies but to the Average Joe. The out of box experience with WHS is extraordinary; configuring remote internet access for files and for remote control of your server and any connected PCs, for example, is so simple your grandmother could do it (assuming granny has a broadband connection and a uPnP-compliant router, otherwise granny would have to configure 3 port forwarding rules ). Signing up for a mydomain.homeserver.com domain just takes a few clicks. And so on. This brings these capabilities to the vast majority of people, who otherwise would have no clue how to set these things up.

And yet, for the ueber-geeks among us, WHS is built upon an extremely powerful and sophisticated code base, so the potential for hacking and extending the capabilities of a WHS is enormous. Just a small list of some of the "other" things you can do with this can be found here. And, since MS have released a SDK for WHS, a large number of add-ins are being released that help extend WHS's capabilities even for the non-technical user.

 

[harrye123]

That's correct, VoR. It seems these threads always go in the same direction, with geeks jumping in and complaining they can do everything (and more) for less money with their linux, ubuntu, etc. box and a hodgepodge of freeware. Of course they can, but they miss the point of this device, which is marketed not to techies but to the Average Joe. The out of box experience with WHS is extraordinary; configuring remote internet access for files and for remote control of your server and any connected PCs, for example, is so simple your grandmother could do it (assuming granny has a broadband connection and a uPnP-compliant router, otherwise granny would have to configure 3 port forwarding rules ). Signing up for a mydomain.homeserver.com domain just takes a few clicks. And so on. This brings these capabilities to the vast majority of people, who otherwise would have no clue how to set these things up.

And yet, for the ueber-geeks among us, WHS is built upon an extremely powerful and sophisticated code base, so the potential for hacking and extending the capabilities of a WHS is enormous. Just a small list of some of the "other" things you can do with this can be found here. And, since MS have released a SDK for WHS, a large number of add-ins are being released that help extend WHS's capabilities even for the non-technical user.

Yeah with the exception that I did not fit in this divide I took the lazy techie (hey I am a computer scientist!) approach of why not just take a box and install a good old os, what more can a server do, i.e. the SIMPLER way.

 

[555Filk]

The drive is Mac formatted (HFS+). MacOS X handles the file sharing.

How do the other non mac os's read and write to this HFS+ partition? I didn't think they could without additional software.

 

[VoR]

Sure, you have an obvious and important point about my policies for data integritiy, at the moment since my raided pc is vista I rely on shadow copies not that much, the recycle bin, and the odd undelete program because if I understand correctly you are refering to data integrity. But of course all these are rudimentary.

Now you mentioned zfs, which, well, that brings the game to a whole new level, is it out already in some form of betta one can try, solaris of course?

If you're using your file server as a desktop, especially if there's more than one user, you're just increasing the risk that something could go wrong at the user level. A software/system update, even if completely unrelated to your file serving purposes could cause an issue too.
Having a stripped down os like someone previously mentioned (comparing 2k8 as a remote access terminal to whs...hmmm) doesn't necessarily mean that it'll be any faster at any job, it just reduces the risk and maintenance of the system as a whole.
If you want your file server to do things like download off usenet or transcode media for your tv appliance, I'd prefer to add those features to a basic system rather than just adding them to a full desktop/server os - either way it would work fine.

You could try zfs with opensolaris/freebsd a fair while ago or you could also try 'nas' software like freenas/nexenta.


@555Filk, he said osx is handling the sharing, it doesn't matter what the filesystem is.

 

[MacFever]

It's a cool central media server alright.

Apple hurry and release yours...

I like the multiple drives for fault tolerance/redundancy in Raid.

 

[harrye123]

Correct me if I am wrong but ext3, not even ext3, some other advanced filesystem of the linuxes in the recommendation for server filesystems.

Because how can one handle the fileneming discrepancies between ntfs and hfs+ (the ":" etc.), and they are many, but not so many if any with ext3?

 

[mytdave]

I must have missed where a Mini has a drive pool so that you can mix and match drive sizes that show as one large volume. UnRAID or FreeNAS would be likely alternatives, but a Mini really isn't. Pus, if you don't have old parts lying around building an UnRAID or FreeNAS box that is in a small form factor, low power, somewaht quiet, and a decent looking case would get $$$ very fast.

I wish Apple would have something, but currently they don't. I am using a PowerMac G4 right now, but it isn't the same as WHS or UnRAID. Plus, it is loud and draws a lot of power.

In the lab that I maintain, we have two Xserves, one with RAID5. Now that would be a solution, but we are talking enterprise vs consumer and a lot of $$$$$.

The mini does not have a drive pool or RAID. You can add one if you like. LaCie (or others) makes a great little cube (4 disk array) for doing this. The total package is more expensive than the HP box, but you get more too - faster computer, mac ease, elegance & reliability, full multiplatorm compatible filesharing, expansion up to 24TB (by adding more cubes), etc.

 

[mytdave]

How do the other non mac os's read and write to this HFS+ partition? I didn't think they could without additional software.

That's the beauty of a file server, it does not matter what format the drive(s) is using... The file server OS handles all the disk I/O and translation to the network protocol used - SMB for Windows clients, NFS or FTP or SCP or others for Linux/Unix clients, AFP for Mac clients. No additional software needed. Also note that Mac/Linux clients can use any/most of the above protocols without any additional software.

Granted the HP box is pretty neat, and it has a laundry list of "features" that are included, all of which are well and good for Windows, and for the most part, completely unnecessary if you're running MacOS (Unix) or Linux.

Unix/Linux based systems were designed from the ground up to be able to share anything and everything with any other computer, play file server, web server, remote access server, attach storage arrays, etc. etc.

 

[mytdave]

Correct me if I am wrong but ext3, not even ext3, some other advanced filesystem of the linuxes in the recommendation for server filesystems.

Because how can one handle the fileneming discrepancies between ntfs and hfs+ (the ":" etc.), and they are many, but not so many if any with ext3?

Clients don't care what file system a server is using because they never see it. They only see and follow the rules of the connecting protocol (such as SMB for Windows). The key to success with 'discrepancies' is to run a file server that does not have file naming restrictions.

I'd like to say most admins, but the second I say 'most' someone will promptly disagree... will be running ext3 on a Linux server. There are lots of other choices too, like ext2, ext4, UFS, ZFS, etc., most of which are journaled and case sensitive and without naming restricions. You cound save a file with the name "This Darn Old @#:?$*! Budget file_9/1/08.odf" without trouble. Yes, you can even name files with a / in them.

Of course a file name like that would not originate from a Windows machine because Windows disallows almost every single ASCII character that is not a letter or a number or a "." (dot).

This does not matter cause the unrestricted file server doesn't care, only the client cares. If your client is Windows, it won't create said file anyway, and if you open an existing file with that name using Windows, Windows will just strip off the unallowed characters and abreviate the file with a series of numbers/letters, kind of like a serial #.

Almost all Linux/Unix clients will have no problem cause they're also not restricted.

Mac clients will behave similar to the Windows clients just with the character ":" which is replaced with a "-".

 

[adamfilip]

Im not sure what to get
I had my heart set on a drobo G2
but this HP is looking good

I just need something for backing up that has redundancy
Mainly backup from my PowerMac G5
but also backup my wifes Vista PC

i dont feel like i need media serving. or itunes serving

I do have a Wii, 360 and PS3 tho so being able to share media to those might be helpful

I like the drobo becasue I can just access it as a large hard drive
can the Hp be used in a similar manner

what do you think the transfer speeds would be between a drobo on firewire 800 and he HP on giga ethernet

I need to backup about 2TB of data

i like the idea of just throwing in a new drive to increase storage without any other work.. can the HP do this?

 

[weckart]

You are missing:

The server contains an Intel Celeron 2.0 GHz processor, 2 GB of RAM and four hard drive bays, with additional expansion possible via one eSATA and four USB ports. Although a Windows PC is required for the initial setup (Boot Camp and virtualization software are officially unsupported for setup), once configured it is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux. Time Machine is supported for backups of networked Macs, while Windows machines are backed up using Windows Home Server. Local file and media sharing is available via Finder, while remote access to files stored on the server is available via Internet browser.

It also includes an iTunes server that centralizes iTunes music libraries for access by any networked Mac or PC with iTunes, as well as tools for simplifying uploads to photo-sharing sites such as Facebook, Picasa, and Snapfish. Online backup via Amazon S3 is also available for additional data protection.


So yeah, you're not just paying $700 for a hard drive. And not everyone has a 8 year old G4 lying around to use as a server. Also, you probably can't set it up as a Time Machine backup or Windows Home Server compatible backup. Oh, also your G4 doesn't have eSATA or 4 USB ports (without expansion card) or Intel processor.

So yeah, you are missing quite a bit I must say.

Dunno, it still seems expensive for what it is. I picked up a brand new HP ML110 G5 Proliant server with a Dual Core Xeon for £110 a few months back. Admittedly, only 1GB RAM and a measly 250GB drive, but those are easily and cheaply upgraded. Plenty of USB ports and very quiet once booted. I have it set up with Linux and talking to my Macs via AFP. You can set up a TM volume onto the Ext3 volumes but it is fiddly and not expandable.
However, if HP has brought TM functionality via software, rather than firmware, then I will take a look at that and maybe give Windows 7 a go, although Samba is supposed to be much slower than AFP.

Having said that, these HP mini-servers do look nice and compact in the flesh. I just get the impression they are not that quiet to run. Thin, rattly metal and mesh does not suggest optimum soundproofing to me.

 

[tosehee]

This unit is primarily targeted for home users with many HDDs and data protection through raid.

If you have happy with one drive, why don't you just buy the usb/firewire enclosure?

I have little over 2+ TBs of data that I'd like to keep in raid 5 setup, and in the nice/small form factor. I can probably built better PCs and etc, but the hassle of doing it and the form factor (wife approved factor) is quite important to ME.

 

[AidenShaw]

Unix/Linux based systems were designed from the ground up to be able to share anything and everything with any other computer, play file server, web server, remote access server, attach storage arrays, etc. etc.

The same applies to Windows NT - networking and sharing are also part of the core OS design, and all of these features are shipped with the OS.

You cound save a file with the name "This Darn Old @#:?$*! Budget file_9/1/08.odf" without trouble. Yes, you can even name files with a / in them.

Of course a file name like that would not originate from a Windows machine because Windows disallows almost every single ASCII character that is not a letter or a number or a "." (dot).

How do you explain these valid paths, then?

"\\Music\Classical\J. S. Bach\Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 4, 5 & 6\07_No. 6 in B flat -- I. (Allegro)_San Marco Luigi Varese_Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 4-6.wma"

"\\Music\Classical\Debussy\Debussy- La Mer; Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune; Danse sacrée et profane\01_De l'aube a midi sur la mer_Debussy- La Mer; Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune; Danse sacrée et profane.wma"

"\\Music\Classical\Jorge Bolet Liszt\Liszt- Années de Pèlerinage Vol. 4\01_Années de pélerinage (Deuxième année - Italie)- I. Sposalizio_Jorge Bolet_Liszt- Années de Pèlerinage Disc 4.wma"​

Whole lot of stuff there that's not A-Z, 0-9 and "." . By the way, all NTFS file and directory names are Unicode, and can be up to 64 KiB (-2) bytes long.

The actual rules are:

NTFS file system

Legal characters in NTFS include the following:

[ ] . ; = ( ) & { } ' , % ~

The period (.) cannot be the first or only character in the filename

Illegal Characters: The following characters are not permitted in Windows file or directory names:

/ \ : * ? " < > |

The control characters (0x00-0x1F, 0x7F) are also invalid in Windows' FAT and NTFS.

​

...these HP mini-servers do look nice and compact in the flesh. I just get the impression they are not that quiet to run. Thin, rattly metal and mesh does not suggest optimum soundproofing to me.

They're actually very quiet - the construction is very solid and tight (where'd you get "thin, rattly" - have you actually picked on up and held it?).

The laptop CPU doesn't generate much heat, so the fans spin slowly. Disk activity is the major noise when they're in use.

Also, the MediaSmart is designed to be stuck in a closet, or cabinet, or out of sight. All access is remote (it has no DVD drive, no VGA/DVI port, no keyboard/mouse ports). Since it generates so little heat, most closets are fine.

 

[bergmef]

My 2 cents worth. I'm still using a DNS323 with 2 1T drives Raid 1 for my NAS.

Only one complaint, it won't power itself on after a power outage. I have to hit the button. Other than that, it's quiet, uses little power when in an idle state, decent throughput. It's only 2 drives, but it's only about 180 dollars(minus the drives). I want a qnap 409 or 509, but I have to save up for that.

 

[jsunem]

drive compatibility?

I want to see a drive compatibility list. They talk about expandability for the future, but when the Infrant/Netgear ReadyNAS came out it still had a listed of compatible drives that never seemed to grow.
http://www.readynas.com/?page_id=82

Let's see a product that truly works for us.

 

[AidenShaw]

I want to see a drive compatibility list.

It's Windows, not some strange embedded firmware in a network appliance.

The HP Docs say "off the shelf SATA I or II hard drives". There is no list of compatible drives - if they work with Windows, they'll work with MediaSmart.

I've used an assortment of WD and Seagate drives, including Seagate 750GB, 1TB and 1.5TB.

 

[malcg]

WHS - Based on Windows 2003 Server

Hi

Just to add a little to the discussion, which I find good, WHS is based Windows 2003 server and by it's very nature has some issues. Since this is a server though an should not be used as a client device the virus issue is not so much of a problem but I would still recommend some sort of Virus protection.

I run a very mixed home environment and I will be looking at these devices when they are released in the UK.

As a background by the way I am currently running an old (10 years+) Compaq (a.k.a. HP) Proliant ML370 with 2 x 677Hz P4's and 1G RAM as a server and it servers the purpose very well. (BTW it has RAID5 via a card that costs more than this server itself) It is running Windows 2003 R2. I have about 1.5-2.0TB of iTunes files (music & video) and drive very successfully 2 x Apple TVs and shared file space for various other PCs/Macs/Linux. If this old config works well I think a 64bit Processor and 2GB RAM should handle most normal users requirements.

Will be interesting to see if the add-ons provide to amalgamate your iTunes libraries pick up the video files as well. This could cause me a problem as I have the same video on my iMAC formatted for iPOD whilst the Server holds an ATV optimised version .....we'll see, I can always disable this and control it manually.

And finally the free software from Microsoft for remote desktop for Mac should work to access rather than through the GUI (it does in the Beta anyway).

This to me looks like a good first start at an easy to use (for the average home user) server solution. Not quite there yet but I'll give it 7 out of 10 for trying. Now wait for the add-ons to make it work better. And hope Apple do deliver on the promises, hey have the basic's just need to plug them all together in an easy to use package .... and let's be realistic Apple are very good at packaging easy to use systems.

 

[tosehee]

Can someone post some benchmark for read/write?

I'm particularly interested in large files as most of my file are 20mb+.

Thanks.

 

[tosehee]

After looking briefly, it doesn't seem like it supports the raid 5... or does it?

It only supports the folder duplication....

Is that about right?

If this is correct, it also means that it doesn't support raid expansion and etc, right?

Hope I am wrong as this is the primary reason why I am considering this particular NAS.

 

[diamond.g]

After looking briefly, it doesn't seem like it supports the raid 5... or does it?

It only supports the folder duplication....

Is that about right?

If this is correct, it also means that it doesn't support raid expansion and etc, right?

Hope I am wrong as this is the primary reason why I am considering this particular NAS.

I have no way of confirming this, but since it uses Win2003 as a base it should support at the minimum software RAID 0, 1, and 5.